


In The Beginning

by RainyDayDecaf



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Almost Drowning, Friendship, M/M, Noah's Ark, Pre-Arrangement, The Great Flood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26303125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyDayDecaf/pseuds/RainyDayDecaf
Summary: “I would have died without your help.  But you’re a demon.  I’m an angel.  We’re not meant to... help each other.  Rather the opposite, in fact.”Or, the first time Crawly saves Aziraphale.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 122





	In The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Prompt by @mouldyapple: If I could actually write I would write a fic about sometime in the past when Crowley saves Aziraphale’s life for the first time and Aziraphale’s like “oh he cares about me”

By the time it occurred to Aziraphale that he really ought to have boarded the Ark _before_ it began to float away with the rising flood, the water was already up to his knees.

“Oh, oh dear,” Aziraphale said. He had gotten distracted watching the other humans as they panicked and dispersed, sunk too deeply into his own thoughts, turning over Crawly’s words in his mind. _Not the kids, you can’t kill kids._ As if Aziraphale had any say in what God did or did not do with Her creations. It wasn’t for a lowly principality to question, Crawly should know that, so why would he look to Aziraphale for commiseration, for _agreement?_ His job was to follow orders, that was all.

Of course those orders had very specifically mentioned being _on the Ark_ before the rain began to fall, and here he was puttering around in muddy water while the Ark drifted off into the mist. Aziraphale began to slog after it, impatiently willing himself to rise up and walk on the surface of the water.

Which did not happen. Aziraphale looked down at his legs, both now fully underwater, and snapped his fingers again. Walk on water. A simple enough miracle, he had done it thousands of times in his travels, sometimes to impress humans but mostly just to keep his feet from getting wet.

He snapped again. And again.

Nothing.

“Right, not to worry,” Aziraphale muttered, very much beginning to worry. He brought out his wings instead and stretched them wide. Just a few flaps would be enough to carry him to the Ark... except the rain, _again_ , soaked into his feathers and left them heavy and bedraggled. Within moments, he could barely lift them. Flying was out of the question.

Normal rain wouldn’t do this.

Heart pounding, Aziraphale looked up at the sky, then back down, shivering just a little. It only made sense, he reasoned with himself. This rain was meant to drown out everything on Earth. Humans, beasts, birds, even demons... of course it would have the power to ground a supernatural entity.

“But... but I’m an angel!” Aziraphale beseeched the sky. Surely God would account for her own servants? She wouldn’t let him _drown_ and discorporate just because he had made a mistake and forgotten to get on the Ark... right? Of course not. God must see him even now, She would surely do something if She saw him in distress...

He lost his footing and went under for a moment and came up sputtering. It was only now occurring to Aziraphale that he had never properly learned how to swim, which was about to become a problem in the next few minutes. And there was no hope of reaching the Ark, it was completely out of sight.

Oh, Aziraphale thought fretfully, he was going to be in _such_ trouble when he turned up at Head Office in need of a new body. He had never been discorporated before, he had even gotten a commendation at the thousand year mark for keeping his mortal body in such good shape! This was going to be so _humiliating..._

Something bumped into his leg. Something big. Something _scaly_. Aziraphale hardly had time to be afraid before it was wrapping around him and the great head of a snake erupted from the water by his shoulder.

Aziraphale shrieked and thwacked it squarely on the nose.

“Ow!” the snake said. “Blimey, angel, what’d I ever do to you?”

“You’re attacking me!” Aziraphale exclaimed.

“I’m trying to help you!” Crawly snapped. “Look behind you!”

Against his better judgement, Aziraphale looked. And was shocked to see Shem, one of Noah’s sons, clinging desperately to the neck of the lost unicorn as it floundered in the water.

“Expect they’ll be coming back for him,” Crawly said. He wrapped himself more tightly around Aziraphale, his long tail undulating frantically to keep them both afloat. “Any minute now. We just have to wait and climb on when they’re not looking.”

Shakily, Aziraphale clung to the snake’s coils and wondered how he would explain _this_ to Head Office.

* * *

“Why did you save me?”

“Eh?” Crawly paced around the darkened hold, carefully squeezing water from his braids. The animals around them were quiet in their pens, and Noah’s family were now all safe in their cabins on the upper levels. It was just the two of them down here, angel and demon hunkered down behind some water barrells and bales of hay.

Aziraphale had conjured up a heavy blanket to wrap around his own shoulders, gazing into the single oil lantern he had dared to light. Now that he was safe on the Ark, out of the flood that would have drowned him just as surely as it had drowned the humans, he was finding it much easier to focus on the demon’s curious actions rather than contemplate how little his Creator cared for him.

“I would have died without your help,” Aziraphale said. _She would have let me die._ “But you’re a demon. I’m an angel. We’re not meant to... help each other. Rather the opposite, in fact.”

Crawly scoffed. Then he paced the other way and scoffed again. Squeezed his hair some more even though it was no longer dripping. “Well. It, er... _well_. I’ll tell you why! I had a reason. Very demonic one. Cause that’s what I am, a demon, I don’t go around saving angels just because I’m _nice_. Cause I’m not!”

Aziraphale nodded, not quite sure what part he was agreeing with.

Crawly paused in his pacing and glared very hard at the two unicorns in their pen, happily reunited and nuzzling one another. He whirled back around to face Aziraphale.

“A favor!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You owe me!” Crawly said in triumph. “I saved you, even though I didn’t have to, so now you’re in my debt! And you’re an angel so you can’t back out!”

“Oh, now that is ridiculous,” Aziraphale retorted. “I won’t grant you any such favor.”

Crawly shrugged. “Ah, it was worth a shot.” He flopped down on a haybale and sighed, chin in his hands. “Just didn’t seem very sporting, s’all. Sitting back watching you die cause of a stupid mistake. That’s just... it’s not how we do things, you and me. Wile and thwart, sure, but we don’t _hurt_ each other. Not like our coworkers. You know how many discorporated demons ended up needing therapy because of Sandalphon?”

“...I suppose he is a bit heavy-handed with the smiting.”

“Point is,” Crawly said, “I like our way of doing things. Less paperwork. Less messy. Sometimes I think you and I are the only ones who really get that this is a _job_ , you know? We don’t have to hate each other just because we’re on different sides. We can be civilized about it.”

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say to that. On the one hand, he knew he _ought_ to be a bit more like Sandalphon and mercilessly strike down any demon who crosses his path. But on the other... Crawly had never given him a reason to. And why go making trouble where there wasn’t any? Why antagonize his counterpart and destroy this tentative peace just for a little more recognition Up There? Besides, he and Crawly like each other well enough, Aziraphale didn’t want to risk being assigned somewhere else and dealing with some other demon who wouldn’t...

Oh.

Aziraphale flushed. _I like him. And he likes me. We like each other. That can’t be allowed, can it? There must be a rule against it..._

“What?” Crawly griped. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Aziraphale averted his gaze. “Nothing! Nothing at all.”

Crawly crossed his arms and glared at the unicorns again. “How long are we stuck on this boat anyway? Few hours? A week?”

“Forty days and nights.”

_“WHAAAT!”_

“Well, there’s no need to be dramatic.”

Crawly moaned and made a show of curling up in a fetal position. Aziraphale suppressed a smile and conjured a pair of wooden cups and a jug. “Wine?”


End file.
